


Walking computer

by meikahidenori



Series: Thunderbirds are go AU [10]
Category: Thunderbird are go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meikahidenori/pseuds/meikahidenori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>set after Terminal Velocity</p><p>Brains has a new idea for advanced prosthetics</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking computer

**Author's Note:**

> Alan 17, John 26, Scott 27 (ages) i'd assume Brains would be aged between John and Scott or at least John and Virgil, his age is unknown.

“What are you doing down here Brains? Shouldn’t you be packing?”

John hobbled his way into a spare chair that was gratefully free of clutter in the engineer's laboratory. The crutches were starting to hurt his armpits and it was a great relief to be able to put them down. He would have had a prosthetic limb by now if Brains had not insisted he had a better idea. It had been three months now since the incident in space, and while Alan was nice enough to take John’s position onboard Thunderbird five for the time being, they still really need him up there to do his job as Alan was still learning the ropes.

“I-I left MAX to do that.” Brains said, not looking up from his current project on his workbench. There was wires and cables everywhere, nuts and screws and occasionally Brains was welding something together. MAX was Brains’s little rover-like robot, his little assistant and excuse for getting out of any work around the house.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Last time you left it to MAX he didn’t pack you any pants.”

“I-It won’t happen this time I-I assure you John.”

“No because this time he’ll fail to pack you some underwear. You don’t want to buy any on board the boat cruise, it will cost a fortune just for a pair of boxers.”

“I-I’m sure you guys could spare the cash.”

“I’m sure we could Brains. Your friends with billionaires after all.” John chuckled.

“T-True, but I-I also have my own fortune tucked away. I-I still earn a lot of money despite working e-exclusively for you fellers these days.” Brains stood back to admire his work before leaning back towards it to continue.

“What are you working on?” John asked out of interest. Curiosity got the better of him, something he didn’t get much of these days. There was times being a part of International Rescue sapped the fun out of things.

“S-Scott’s been on my back about that leg of yours. He said that whatever I-I’m planning to do to hurry up as y-your not going on the cruise with crutches. A-Apparently people would notice. He’s got a thing against n-newspapers thinking something is wrong with your family.”

“Do you blame him? If the press starts poking their nose into our lives the very secrets we keep will be out in the open and there’s too much at stake now to let that happen. Dad tried really hard to keep us out of the limelight and well, we didn’t do very much to prevent a lot of the press we ended up getting to begin with other than have jobs that put us in the spotlight for time to time. It’s only natural for people to be curious about the world's most unusual rich people.” John poked the floor with one of his crutches.

“Personally I don’t care whether or not they think I lopped off my own leg because I’m an eccentric rich bastard. They might leave me alone, as you can’t go anywhere these days without someone trying to find out some exclusive about us.” he sighed. “They really are trying to work out who’s behind International Rescue and to a lot of the press it seems rather strange we all gave up great careers to live out here as bachelors on an island… people get ideas.”

“T-That’s why we are going on this cruise is it? T-To appear normal?”

“That wasn’t my idea. You can blame Lady Penelope for that.” John looked at his watch. “Alan should be coming home soon, I just hope we can all cope not being all wired up for a whole week and let the Global Defence Force take the strain while we try and relax. Afterall, sometimes the world's best rescue organization needs to take a holiday.”

“Y-You don’t sound too e-excited.”

“Brains, I’ve been out of the loop for three months. It’s not exactly been a picnic. There’s only so many books you can read to stay entertained. Without Alan around there’s little point playing any video games or watching the latest movies, watching Gordon swim laps in the pool isn’t the slightest bit as interesting as it used to be either.” he sighed. “Not having anything to do gets to you after awhile and being on a cruise ship doing exactly that for another week might just drive me crazy.”

“Y-You did help me with the suit upgrades, w-wasn’t that enough?”

“Ah yeah, no offence Brains, but my idea of helping you didn’t include you trying to electrocute me in the process.” John winced when he thought about the tweaks the engineer had tried to make to his space suit so he could do the same upgrades for Alan’s. The electrical wires in the suit had been connected wrong and John got a lovely burn all the way down his arms and his remaining leg. That had not been a fun day. The upside was he had an excuse as to why he didn’t have to sit in the sunshine on the cruise ship.

“B-Be that as it may, I-I was glad for the help. I-I wouldn’t have known otherwise.” Brains finally stopped working and held up what he had been working on. As far as John could tell it was a mess of wires and metal.

“I-I have yet to put a casing on it, b-but for the moment… I-I need you to test it.”

“What exactly is that?” John couldn’t help but look worried. There is only so many times one person can stand to be electrocuted.

“J-Just put your right knee in that part there,” Brains pointed to a place at the top of the bizarre contraption. “A-And then I can wire it up and switch it on.”

“Hey what? Wire it up? What do you mean, ‘wire it up’?”

“I-I’m going to wire it up to your nerves. D-Don’t worry there is not operation involved, b-but you will feel a slight stinging sensation as the first pulses connect themselves.”

“Brains, I don’t think this is safe.”

“O-Of course it is, y-you just need to trust me.”

John took a deep breath. “Alright fine. Let’s get this over with.” John rolled up the leg of his shorts that hid the scars from where he lost his right leg. He wasn’t ashamed of it, but it didn’t look right to show it off in polite company. It was his only major battle scar that made him feel like he was a member of the team, although his brothers would have happily said that he always had been as without his skills in communications they would have been in some serious situations which could have cost them their lives at one time or another.

Brains helped him fit the hunk of metal and wires to the remaining knee joint, Brains adjusting things as he went, then he steadied the taller man and said, “T-This won’t hurt a bit.” he grabbed a few of the loose wires that seemed to have needle like tips on them and using a little device to scan for nerve endings, he jabbed them into John’s skin.

John was pretty good at hiding pain. He prided himself on that. However it was hard to hide it completely, as Brains noted the flexing of John’s fingers into the arms of the chair. Admittedly losing a limb didn’t mean you lost sensation in that area and three months on, John was still acting as if it was still there because his body had not accepted the visual evidence and continued to give the sensation that it was very much attached. Eventually he relaxed when his whole knee had gone numb from the tingling sensation of pain in the nerves.

“A-Almost done, just got to switch it on.” Brains stood up and walked back over to the bench and came back with another little device. He hooked it over John’s left ear and secured it under his reddish gold hair towards where the neck connected with the spine. “T-This will keep it fully powered and allow y-you to control its movement. I-It’s got inbuilt sensors that pick up brainwave patterns and eletrical n-nerve pulses.”

“And here was me thinking you were going to stick those wires directly into my head.” John exhaled with relief. Last thing he needed was Gordon to make fun of him for becoming a cyberman, already he copped enough flack off his younger sibling about the high tech space suit calling him a ‘David Bowie reject.’

“W-Well I-I could have, but if this doesn’t work I-I’d be panicking that I-I’d have fried your brain alive, k-killing you outright.”

John tried to look around to see the engineer, who was standing behind him. “Fry me alive? What they hell!? Wait, Brains can we rethink this whole -”

John didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. Brains pressed a switch on the head device which activated the power and the wires that were connected into his knee all came to life at once, sending his system into shock and his body into seizures.

 

***

“Is he alright?”

“I-I hope so. I-I shut the power off immediately after I-I realised I-I had the pulse voltage t-too high. S-Seventy mV was what it should have been set at, but I had it at s-seventy four. N-not enough to kill him, but enough to give his heart a v-violent shock.”

“I honestly don’t know why he lets you use him as a guinea pig Brains. One of these days you’re going to kill my brother and I will make you live to regret that.”

“N-Noted Alan. I-I have seen what you do to Gordon when he tries to prank you.”

“Trust me, that will be a picnic to what I can really do.”

“Don’t even consider it Alan.” John mumbled. He could taste metal in his mouth and it was foul. He was struggling to wake up on the steel floor and had been listening to his brother and the engineer for the past few minutes with his eyes closed. “Brains could find ways to hurt you that are far worse.”

He tried to pull himself up but only got as far as resting on his elbows. His muscles were on fire just from a tiny little bit of movement. Just what had Brains really done to him this time?

“Ok so that clearly backfired. What now?” John looked at Brains and took a second to register he wasn’t listening to him. His attention was at John’s legs.

“That is so cool!” Alan exclaimed.

John had moved his knees up as he tried to sit up and the weird bunch of metal and wires Brains had connected up were also sitting up as if it was always a part of his body.

“Holy crap.” was all he could say.

“You could say, ‘Why thankyou Brains for making something so awesome for me.’” Alan grinned like an idiot.

“Sorry I didn’t expect it to work. I mean, sure you're a great inventor Brains, but you are not a doctor and I’m… quite impressed actually.”

“I-I expected nothing less.” Brains seemed pretty satisfied with the result. He looked really smug behind his big blue-rimmed glasses. “G-Give me a minute to lock the waterproof casing around it a-and then we can try and get you s-standing upright on it and go from there.”

“Waterproof huh? So this thing can’t come off to be able to take a shower?”

“T-Technically it can, b-but the reattachment of all the wires into your n-nerves is a fiddly process and y-you’d have to do it right to prevent accidental electrocution.”

“I see.” John found himself trying to get used to the idea. In space it didn’t matter as there was no showers on board the space station but back down on earth he realised that it would become an issue. It was already hard to keep stable on one leg in the shower as it was. “And this thing you stuck to the back of my head?”

“T-Totally waterproof and c-chemical proof. Y-you can still use shampoo.”

“Thank hell for that.”

“J-Just don’t jump into the pool or anything. I-It’s not that waterproof.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. No hanging around Gordon and big bodies of water. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Try impossible.” Said Alan. “We’re going on a cruise remember?”

“I forgot about that.”

“I wonder what lady Penelope is going to say when she sees you walking around without crutches?” Alan teased. It wasn’t that big a secret that John had spent a bit of time with her now that he was stuck pottering around the house, Penelope taking time out of her busy secret agent life to check on him and to help relieve him of his boredom. It wasn’t as if they were dating, but Alan carried on as if they may as well have been. He had been having a ball with it, rubbing salt into Gordon’s wounds as it was a well known fact Gordon really had the eyes for her, admittedly eyes for anything pretty in a skirt.

John blushed slightly, and Alan smiled as if to say, ‘Gotcha.’ personally Alan liked the idea of his older brother being sweet on their undercover agent. She was deadly and very beautiful, a combination of which any man would want to spend time with. She was also highly smart and very skilled, but also very gentle. If anything, John’s personality complimented hers far better than Gordon’s but you never know, Alan had been wrong before. His brother had plenty of failed dates with ladies that seemed perfect at the time for him, it wasn’t that John was a hard person to get along with, he was just frustrating to get to know in the first place.

“Maybe I’m better off staying here… I have to learn how to use this thing afterall.”

“Hell no, I’m not being stuck on a ocean liner with noone but Scott and Virgil for company. Besides, they are mostly likely going to ditch me and leave me stranded tagging along with Gordon there is no way I want to be doing that. When he’s trying to show off he’s the biggest perv around and it’s embarrassing!”

“No, Gordon’s just embarassing full stop. He was born that way remember?” John couldn’t help himself, picking on ‘fish for brains’ was infectious. “But I agree with you, he’s a damn perv. No wonder he can’t get any dates.”

“See? I need you to be there otherwise I’d be stuck with him.”

“Alright I get the picture Alan… but on one condition.”

“Anything John.”

“You don’t leave me stuck with him either.”

“Deal.”

“Help me up will you? The steel floor is starting to make my bum fall asleep.”

“J-Just one second.” Brains had walked off while they had been talking and making fun of Gordon to grab the coverings. Once in place you couldn’t tell it from any other standard prosthetic he had for his robot MAX. Brains and Alan both helped John get to his feet and Alan let him lean onto him for a couple of attempts at walking around the room.

“I could really get the hang of this. I like how the foot moves so naturally.”

“It looks like you never lost it in the first place.”

“You wish Alan. but it’s pretty awesome to think a part of me is mechanical.”

“W-Worth waiting three months?” Brains asked.

“Heck yes.”

“Y-You’ll love this bit.” Brains grinned. “I-It can also store backup data and s-systems into Thunderbird five. E-Even when you’re not in space, y-you’re a walking communications hub.”

Jon looked a little concerned. “I don’t think that’s a good thing Brains…”

“O-Of course it is!” Brains handed him a new wrist communicator that he had been working on to install onto all the suits. “That little device that controls your leg can also control lots of other things wirelessly, including all communications to all the other Thunderbird’s suits, and also from you own you can control holographic projections of all sorts of things from the back of your hand.”

“I’m essentially a walking computer, is that what you're telling me?”

“W-Well, if you put it that way..”

“Ok, look I’m sorry Brains, but I think you might have gone too far.” John didn’t look impressed. “What’s going to happen if I kicked the bucket? You going to upload my brain into a supercomputer?”

“T-The thought hadn't crossed my mind, b-but now that you mentioned it.”

John raised both hands up and shook his head. “Don’t… just… don’t go there.”

“Brains, you do realise you’ve just turned John into a walking target for anyone who wants to get their hands on International Rescue right?”

“I-I didn’t think of that. I-I only thought it would be more h-helpful to you guys.”

“That’s quite alright, Brains…” John sighed. “As long as only us three know about it we should be fine, right Alan?”

“Yeah I guess so. I couldn’t imagine Scott finding out about it.”

“Find out about what?”

All three of them froze. They had been too worried about the whole ‘supercomputer’ thing to not notice Scott had entered the laboratory.

“No seriously, what am I not suppose to find out about? I know practically everything that goes on around here sooner or later.”

“Oh, nothing, nothing Scott, we were just discussing your birthday.” Alan said without skipping a beat.

The eldest sibling frowned. “That’s not for another month or so.”

“Exactly, we were discussing presents.”

“Yeah we know how much you hate it when we give you gift cards.” John chimed in.

Scott rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I see Brains has finally gotten around to getting you mobile.” Scott smiled giving his tallest sibling a brotherly nudge. “Ready to test it out around the house before we get going for this trip? I’ve been looking forward to this cruise around Europe, I especially can’t wait to see Budapest.”

“Hey maybe I can try out my Hungarian while I’m at it!” Alan said excitedly. “I’ve been practicing really hard!”

“That’s great little brother!” Scott reached up and ruffled Alan’s hair. There was a time where he didn’t like being shorter than his younger siblings, but then all things considered, he never had to deal with finding clothing hard to buy or door ways and ceilings not high enough so he saw it as an upside.

“As for you John, Lady Penelope was asking after you. She said something about a new novel or something you asked her for.”

“Ah, I almost forgot about that.”

“Well come on then, she’s waiting in the living room.”

“Bloody hell Scott, that’s not fair!”

Scott smiled. “It’s totally fair, you get to look like a fool in front of her and I get to sit and watch.”

“Sometimes you can be an arsehole.” John punched his older brother in the arm.

“Yeah, but you still love me for it.” Scott slapped him on the back. “You did a great job Brains, how about you join us?”

“I-I will, just got a few things to t-tidy up around here first.”

“Brains, you will never clean this mess. Just forget about it for now.”

“I agree, besides, Penelope rather likes you.”

“Y-You’re just saying that.”

Scott put his arms around the engineer and walked him out of the laboratory, otherwise Brains wouldn’t have ever left it on his own accord.

“This vacation is going to be the best ever!” Alan couldn’t contain his bouncing excitement anymore. He was hopping from one foot to the other.

“I hope so. We need it to be.” 

Alan jumped around a few more times before settling back down at John’s side to give him some added support for the walk out of the laboratory. After all the things that their home had hidden away, an elevator was not one of them and the only way back to the living room was via a long trek up the stairs.

“Want your crutches?”

John thought about it. “No. Let’s see how we go first.”


End file.
